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in the country have been restricted, yet companies have enjoyed relatively greater freedom into their socio-economic development activities. The research suggests that TNCs have been influential in: changing the government’s position on HIV/AIDS; building the capacity of the health and education ministries when humanitarian actors were unwilling or unable to work with the government (Igboemeka, 2005);and responding to the humanitarian crisis of Cyclone Nargis more rapidly and with greater freedom than foreign humanitarian actors. When commercial operations are considered non-political by those in power, they may be in a better position to engage with development challenges than traditional development actors. 4. The influence of business leadership. Companies that constructively engage in fraught contexts model behavior for other organizations through various mechanisms. These include legacy, where a company takes on SEPs through its purchase of another company as was the case for Petronas through its purchase of Premier Oil’s stake in the Yetagun project; partnerships, as seen in the development of SEPs in subsequent ventures by companies who were non-operating joint venture partners in a project running a SEP, and collaboration in business associations. Further, a local Myanmar company in a service relationship started a

expectations on the part of the state/hub partner in an industry of what best practice SEPs may entail. All of these represent points for leverage and business leadership through which a culture of responsible corporate action could be encouraged and developed.

Re-assessing constructive corporate engagement

Much emphasis has been placed on the ability of stakeholder pressure to drive the development of corporate citizenship, but limits to this strategy exist in a multi-polar globalized world (Tripathi, 2007). The strategy of encouraging divestment from Myanmar and the Western sanctions policy has singularly failed to bring about regime change in the country (International Crisis Group, 2008), primarily due to continuing inward investment by countries in the region, particularly in the energy and extractive sectors (Kolås and Tønnesson, 2006). Advocates attempting to engage new TNCs from emerging economies find they are effectively shielded from global chains of civil-society accountability and advocacy through a domestic constriction of civil society, their status as State-owned Enterprises or as private-equity ventures, and poorly developed home country regulatory infrastructure.

This case study indicates that a range of business-to-business and business-to- government interactions can encourage the adoption of practices which may contribute to the resolution of significant development challenges found in contexts of civil strife and weak governance mechanisms. It suggests that attention should be given to the ways in which corporate engagement may build or undermine civil society and representative governance systems at both the grassroots and government level, and the ways in which it can contribute to the development of a global culture of responsible corporate action. In further exploring these processes and their impact on the social, political and economic conditions in a host country, useful comparative examples could be found in the adoption and impact of the Kimberley Process in the diamond industry, or the development and

impact of the Sullivan and MacBride Principles in South Africa and Northern Ireland, respectively (Bernasek and Porter, 1997 ; McCrudden, 1999 ; Sethi and Williams, 2000).

CONCLUSION

The Swiss Master Class provided a great opportunity for dialogue between research and practice on human rights and for unveiling the promising research projects elaborated upon in this article. Five different, though interrelated, approaches towards the relationships between corporate practice and human rights have been presented herein. As Figure 1 shows, the overarching claim of these perspectives is that corporations should take an active role in the protection of human rights.

It has been argued that constant dialogue with stakeholders, which enhances transparency and corporate legitimacy, is a necessary step toward the respect of human rights by corporations. Moreover, without dialogue, empowerment could not take place as it needs a careful examination of the situation and a comprehensive understanding of possible corporate actions and their consequences. As such, empowerment has been examined from three points of view. First, it was shown that business engagement in low-income communities can lead to empowerment if companies take a co-creation approach in addition to human rights compliance activities. Second, community empowerment has been depicted as a way toward sustainable development and increased respect of human rights. Finally, consumer social responsibility and ways to empower consumers have also been depicted as a complementary approach to traditional human rights’ protection by corporations. By empowering consumers, NGOs can put increased pressure on corporations to act upon human rights. The last point of view adopted in this article is the concept of corporate constructive engagement, which has been illustrated by a case study of the oil and gas industry in Burma.

solutions given are mostly directed towards TNCs. Indeed, very little research has been conducted into the treatment of human rights by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). As TNCs have a global reach and immense economic power, they are able to leverage resources and solutions in order to be catalysts for change. In comparison, SMEs have few resources and might not be able to apply the same methods for the respect and protection of human rights. The costs of implementing social projects, both in time and resources, might create a burden too heavy to bear for SMEs. However, even if the challenges and possible solutions might be different, SMEs, as TNCs, have to deal with human rights issues in their operations. As such, further research pertaining to the relationships between SMEs and human rights would be useful. Additional research into TNCs is also necessary to examine the problems of high implementation costs, the difficulty of selecting trustful local partners, as well as ensuring a sustainable follow-up to corporate engagement. Moreover, social conflicts on a local, national or global level might arise after empowerment. Unequal development opportunities between different communities or regions can create tensions and therefore, it is essential to assess how such conflicts can be avoided.

This article proposes suggestions for behavioral change with regard to human rights to TNCs. However, the cases provided apply to specific situations with specific conditions and characteristics that may not be applicable to other cases. Again, a careful examination of the context and stakeholder dialogue is needed in order to establish sustainable human rights practices by corporations. Indeed, a business’s voluntary actions to engage in social projects related to human rights are subject to critiques. With regard to empowerment, it is questioned whether it is the role of business to sustain social transformation. Nonetheless, corporate action through dialogue, empowerment and constructive engagement can leverage the respect and protection of human rights in the world. Additionally, dialogue and empowerment can be an effective approach to guarantee that business activities do not contribute to human rights

violations. The process of empowerment can result in changes of mindset, which makes it easier for corporations to implement and enforce ethical business principles in local communities (de Leede, 2007).

It is realistic to expect that profit-making enterprises want to contribute to development programs based on a cost-benefit analysis that demonstrates that the benefits of promoting human rights standards, such as prohibiting child labor, outweigh the cost of implementing them (Ougaard, 2005). Moreover, corporations operating in risky countries must take an active role in demonstrating due diligence towards their responsibility to respect human rights, as the case of Myanmar has shown. Success has been observed and therefore, companies are encouraged to study best practices and get engaged in multi-stakeholder initiatives focusing on empowerment. In this globalized world, different stakeholders must exchange knowledge and combine skills in order to achieve goals that one actor alone is not able to do.

NOTES

i

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Preamble, http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html#ap

ii

Multi-stakeholder initiatives are new mechanisms of cooperation between corporations and civil society organizations, sometimes involving governmental institutions. They generally aim at tackling pressing social and environmental issues by building a framework for sustainable progress in the realization of human rights, most of the time with the help of standards. Examples include the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (www.voluntaryprinciples.org), the Fair Labor Association (www.fairlabor.org) or the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights (www.blihr.org).

iii

The authors of the present article are the five Young Scholars: Dorothée Baumann, Sara Lindeman, Marieke de Leede, Lindsay McShane and Nicky Black, invited to the conference in order to present new ways of thinking about business and human rights, as well as the organizer of the conference, Sébastien Mena.

iv _{The Masters were, in alphabetical order: Gilles Carbonnier, Professor, HEI Geneva; Philip Jennings, Secretary}

General, UNI Global Union; Chris Marsden, Chairman, Business Group Amnesty; Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Chairman, Anglo American; Gerald Pachoud, Special Adviser on Business & Human Rights, UN; and Auret van Heerden, Chairman & President, Fair Labor Association.

v _{For an overview of corporate human rights policies see http://www.business-}

humanrights.org/Documents/Policies

vi _{The UN Global Compact is the world's largest corporate citizenship and sustainability initiative. Since its}

official launch on 26 July 2000, the initiative has grown to more than 6200 participants, including over 4700 businesses in 120 countries around the world. It is a network-based initiative with the Global Compact Office and six UN agencies at its core. By participating, businesses voluntarily commit to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. By doing so, business, as a primary agent driving globalization, can help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance in ways that benefit economies and societies everywhere (www.unglobalcompact.org, April 2008).

vii_{Interview with Christian Frutiger, Nestle’s social affairs and human rights manager. Interview transcript}

available from the author.

ix _{The assumption of bounded moral rationality, central to this conceptual study, was a point of great discussion}

amongst the Masters. While there was no dispute that it is necessary to enrich our understanding of the consumers’ role in advancing the agenda for social responsibility in the marketplace, the assumptions about the potential capacity for the consumer to do so was the primary point of discussion. Many of the Masters indicated that, though valuable to conceptually examine the issue of social responsibility from the perspective of bounded moral rationality, it is perhaps more realistic to adopt an economic, self-interested view of consumers as more price motivated. These divergent views provided grounds for a rich discussion and highlighted the complexities of advancing the CSR agenda, and more specifically, that of consumer social responsibility.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Guido Palazzo for the opportunity he gave us to present the research projects developed in this article at the Swiss Master Class in CSR 2008 and for his valuable comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to the Masters and the audience of the Swiss Master Class for the constructive comments and discussions raised during the

conference. Finally, we also would like to thank Julia Breslinfor the copyediting of this article.

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